Alliance for the Defeat of Citizenship Taxation (ADCT) seeks major donors to fund United States lawsuit in federal District Court

It is now likely that the new United States Tax “Reform” legislation will not help citizen-residents of other countries who are deemed to be “U.S. persons”.

Consequently, we at the Alliance for the Defeat of Citizenship Taxation (ADCT), a non-profit corporation, want to move quickly on a lawsuit in federal District Court in the United States.

Our lawsuit will focus on the core doctrine of “Citizenship Taxation” which serves as the basis for the extraterritorial reach of U.S. tax obligations as well as the annual financial reporting requirements imposed upon permanent residents and citizens of other countries.

The litigation will also seek to overturn other U.S. laws made applicable to persons who may have been born in the United States but have long since had little or no nexus to United States. In addition, the legal action would challenge the excessive costs and time delays imposed on those seeking to abandon U.S. citizenship.

The lawsuit will require plaintiffs who have suffered a distinct, not “speculative”, injury and funds to pay legal costs.

We estimate that legal costs will be U.S. $200,000 to take litigation through U.S. Court of Appeals.

We cannot finalize agreement with any law firm until we have received the necessary funding. We already have a legal opinion from Washington D.C. attorney Mr. Jim Butera (Jones Walker LLP), who has previously acted on our behalf, and once funds are received we will explore a contract with Mr. Butera.

At present we are not accepting any funds. Once the U.S. tax reform bill becomes law our preference is to obtain quickly the necessary funds from a small number of major donors (minimum, $U.S. 50,000).

If interested in the possibility of being a major donor, please contact Stephen Kish at information@cbtlawsuit.ca.

We all agree that asking “small” donors to fund this litigation is very unfair. However, should we receive no indication of interest from major donors by January 15, 2018 we will have no choice but to seek funding of any amount from donors of limited means.